Monthly Archives: July 2009

Mommy Blogging


I’ve been reading about the call to keyboard for authentic writing in the momosphere for the first week of August. It seems there are camps forming with two distinct themes. The one is that being courted by businesses with a variety of giveaway goodies for the purpose of honest assessment and word of blog publicity is a good thing for women who blog. The other side is decrying the takeover of real dialogue and community in favor of poorly written and arguably deceptive posts.

My eyes hurt from all the rolling.

Most of the commercial mom blogs I read, or have skimmed, are businesses. And there is nothing wrong with a blogger taking advantage of the commerciality of their work. The net is the last frontier as far as low cost start-ups go and more power to you if you can convince someone to pay you for doing something you enjoy.

But here is the problem I have. These women, as far as I can tell, aren’t getting paid. They are taking stuff. Maybe they sell it later on eBay to recoup expenses for their time and maybe not, but since when did “stuff” constitute a living? And when a blogger is willing (and plenty seem to be) to be compensated in goods what happens to the writers/bloggers who would rather have cash? I mean, not every mommy blogger has a daddy paycheck earner to take care of the pesky expenses, and last I heard, the people who hold your mortgage aren’t keen on barter.

Here’s the other thing that doesn’t compute for me. How are we a community, or cyber friends even, when you are writing to convince me to buy things. That’s almost as annoying as the friend who takes up Pampered Chef or Mary Kay or sex toy parties because now our friendship is threatened by an unspoken coersion that involves me feeling obligated to buy and you needing me to buy in order to maintain the flow of freebies and advertising. And now I am not a “dear reader” or a friend but rather a customer.

The bloggers at Momdot want moms to blog authentically for the first week of August. To just shut down the PR (it’s unclear to me if this includes all the ads in the sidebars which make pages load so slowly) and get back to basics. Which begs the question of what a mom is to do if she began blogging simply to milk the cash cow but that is a call for others to decide.

Some are not really down with this. They are proud of the businesses they have built and rightfully so. If you are blogging for profit and are good at it and your “friends” are totally cool with funding you, the fact that it is a quasi-ponzi scheme shouldn’t be an issue.

More and more I am uncomfortable in the momosphere – which, by the way, this space here is not part of – I have always been clear on the fact that I began blogging for me and it continues to be “all about me” which is probably too boring for most. And I am totally rethinking my connections with mom grogging because I am not allowed to be utterly me and write about women’s issues, wants, dreams, dilemmas, only some of which are mom-oriented. At my age, why should I care what companies think I need or should want? They are only interested in my money and will shill and wheedle and flatter their souls away to sell it to me. Their power? Lies in my willingness to buy and in someone else’s willingness to sell themselves cheaply enough to promote it to me.

I just don’t understand taking crap as payment – and if I have to dust, store, or pick it up and move it from one place to another – it’s crap. It’s like the white traders in the early days of North America buying land and goods from Native Americans with glass beads and cutlery. I don’t remember who wrote this, maybe it was Konrath, but the sincerest form of flattery for a writer, and I think blogging counts as writing, is a paycheck, and if you aren’t doing your bit to promote the idea of money as currency for writers then you are not a writer and you are hurting real writers with your posing. You are kind of like scabs who cross picket lines, under-cutting the common good for selfish gain. 

“But I am feeding my family!”

Really? With movie passes and WiiFit?

We (and when I say “we”, I mean “you”) will always be ghetto-ized as Mommybloggers so long as the majority of us are mesmerized by the sprinkles tossed our way like bootie shaped confetti decorating a table cloth at a baby shower. We will not be taken seriously as a group or a force. And the sad thing is – we (and by “we” I mean “all women”) would be a force if our more prominent members weren’t so content to be stereotypes.

Two Years, No Rain


Read Shawn Klomparens’ latest novel, Two Years, No Rain over the the weekend. It clocks in at 370 pages, which is about a hundred pages or so past my comfort range these days. I prefer shorter works because they are usually sweeter in terms of tight editing and lack of meandering, but despite the length, it was a fast read.

It’s the story of Andy Dunne, a mid-thirties weatherman adrift in life and, though fully aware of this, not doing much about it. It’s a chick-lit theme. Lack of direction collides with outside catalyst and suddenly characters find themselves moving on from the circumstances that have held them almost without their active permission.

The narrative is not burdensome. Komparens doesn’t feel the need to describe setting and characters to inertia. He uses dialogue to reveal, but unfortunately he sometimes uses it to recap events the main character hasn’t any access to as he is a first person narrator. He inserts back story rather deftly in some points but not swiftly enough in others. The first three chapters were slow,  but not to the point of interest loss on my part, though I began to get a bit impatient for the story to begin.

It reads like most books in the genre except the sex is less flowery which in my opinion was a plus. I found the main character and his love interest spot on if one believes that Gen X’rs are self-involved yet self-unaware.

Andy’s wife has left him. He has been involved in a serious emotional affair with a co-worker for two years. And he is on the verge of being made redundant. This is the first three chapters with a dead brother and an assortment of secondary characters thrown in to round things out. Suddenly, Andy is offered a chance to become the star of a Blue’s Clues like kiddie show and the story is off and running in fairly predictable rom-com fashion, heavy on drama and light on giggles.

It reminded me of Ross and Rachel, but the later years not the early ones.

I don’t know what I think about men writing chick lit, but at least the sex is not metaphorical. Bottom line? It’s not feel good. These are two married people choosing to cheat rather than be grown ups and work on their relationships. It’s hard to root for that. But it is realistic because it mirrors what relationships have become for many in our society, Disney happily ever after or NEXT. It was also hard to see what Andy was in love with because his love interest, Hillary, doesn’t get a fleshing out until too late in the story for most readers to still be wondering enough to care. And ultimately, that was the problem. There are clues and clues and no reveal. Bread crumbs should lead somewhere before the birds eat them all up.

But do remember, I am one reader/reviewer. Check out the links below before making up your own mind.

Check out Shawn’s website HERE.

Follow Shawn on Twitter.

Shawn Klomparens TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:

Tuesday, July 7th: Book, Line, and Sinker

Monday, July 13th: Peeking Between the Pages

Wednesday, July 15th: Anniegirl1138

Friday, July 17th: Bermuda Onion

Tuesday, July 21st:  Suko’s Notebook

Wednesday, July 22nd: Stephanie’s Confessions of a Book-a-holic

Monday, July 27th:  Life In The Thumb

Wednesday, July 29th: Cindy’s Love of Books

Thursday, July 30th: Raging Bibliomania

Monday, August 3rd: Chic Book Chick

Tuesday, August 4th:  Planet Books

Monday, August 10th: Bookworm with a View

Wednesday, August 12th:  Starting Fresh

Thursday, August 13th:  Pop Culture Junkie

Tuesday, August 18th: Books on the Brain – Summer Reading Series

Thursday, August 20th: Book-a-Rama

Feels Like Summer Rambling Thoughts


Woke up yesterday morning to warm, sun, and what passes for humidity here, and I thought, “Summer?” The question mark is essential because Rob believes we are in for a non-summer this year. Great. Let’s punctuate that with a heaping of Swine flu when school starts up and snow before Halloween too, shall we?

I long ago lost my taste for blistering Iowa summers which draped a person in hot moist air like a towel in a steam room. Back in the late 90’s, when I was still very much on my own, I loved that kind of weather. I ran around all summer in cut-offs, bikini tops and halters, went to the pool every afternoon and took long runs in the evenings. A decadent lifestyle. 

Humidity now feels like someone is stuffing a wet towel down my throat while kneeling on my chest, and I have neither the figure for a bikini top nor the patience for kid infested afternoons at the local pool. And long runs? Not to my knees’ liking. 

Ten years. Where have you gone? And what have you done with me?

Monday was lazy. Dee and I went into town to run errands. One of them was taking deposit containers back to the Bottle Depot, a filthy, disgusting time suck of a chore. I may have mentioned that the family that runs the place have a relative notion about hours of operation. Although the sign says 10am to 4PM, open and close have a 20 to 30 minute give or take on both. Knowing this, I just did a drive by around 10:30 and found customers backed out on to the street. Off we went to run the other errands, which included fortifying Dee with take away lunch because I was sure we’d still end up sitting and waiting a good half hour when we tried the Bottle Depot again.

While we were at the grocery, Dee spied two Army light-armoured transports and wanted to go over and take a peek as the soldiers were clearly on lunch break. One invited her to climb aboard and check things out. She did. She loves heavy machinery and uniforms. Rob says this is how they begin their seduction of the youth.

As we walked away we discussed the fact that soldiers are the ones who “stand on guard for thee”. Dee takes this duty of all Canadians very seriously.

“I watch all the time except for when I blink and am asleep.”

When do we lose that? The first time we single issue vote?

Later, as we sat at the Bottle Depot (40 minutes), I watched the car ahead of me. A young man not too many years younger than the soldiers we saw earlier. Iron Maiden shirt. Camouflage shorts. Cigarette dangling from his lower lip and hauling box after bag out of this little Nissan, each filled with beer cans. I wonder if he still stands on guard for Canada?